The move today to have GOP electors in the 5 disputed states vote, is not a symbolic gesture. It is the pre-amble to a constitutional action and will empower a clause in the ECA that tosses the election to the House and Senate.
If the electors did not vote, than the Dem electors from those states would go to the Jan 6th session and be placed in the hands of the VP for counting WITHOUT an alternate set of electors being available. In this scenario, after an objection on the floor from one Congressman and one Senator, the two houses would vote separately on accepting the electors of the 5 states in question...and if they disagree, those electors stand and are counted. In this scenario, under the ECA, both the House and Senate must agree to REJECT the electors.
That said, now that there IS an alternate set of electors who have voted...in the case of such a dispute, a disagreement between the House and Senate means BOTH sets of electors are rejected and there are no longer 270 votes for either candidate. To pull this off, the President and GOP must hold at least 50 solid votes in the Senate in support of accepting the GOP electors...if they do so...and that's a huge if...the Presidential election is devolved to the House of Representatives and a state by state vote in that House. The Senate would then select a VP by individual vote.
The Trump administration is following the Constitution AND the Electoral Counting Act via this process...but again...the key is that it takes 50 votes in the Senate to accomplish this. In a legal sense, having these GOP electors vote today was step 1 in this process...step 2 comes on Jan 6 when one House and one Senate rep object to the counting of Electors from the 5 states in question.
This is going to get crazy, folks....but remember, the path laid out above is entirely Constitutional. It is also in full compliance with the existing law as laid out in the ECA.